Hi there,
Sorry for the slow reply.
Nicolas Goaziou <m...@nicolasgoaziou.fr> writes:
> Hello,
>
> Rasmus <ras...@gmx.us> writes:
>
>> I wonder if oc-biblatex should support loading biblatex-derived libraries,
>> e.g. biblatex-chicago?
>>
>> There’s a quite a few of these libraries:
>>
>> $ tlmgr search --global "biblatex-" | wc -l
>> 66
>>
>> (This is somewhat overestimating the true number of “biblatex-*”
>> packages).
>>
>> These libraries are typically nie because they are (i) easier to configure
>> than biblatex for a specific style and (ii) actually support some
>> \usepackage keywords that can’t be used by biblatex (e.g. ibidtracker for
>> biblatex-chicago).
>>
>> Thus, it might be able to at least support
>>
>> #+cite_export: biblatex-$SUBSTYLE
>>
>> E.g. #+cite_export: biblatex-chicago. But oc-biblatex would likely also
>> have to be able to pickup biblatex-* packages in
>> org-latex-(default-)packages-alist...
>>
>> So maybe it’s a can of worms?
>
> I don't know enough about BibLaTeX to answer that question. What does it
> entail to "support loading biblatex-derived libraries" in practical
> terms? I assume \usepackage{biblatex-chicago} instead of
> \usepackage{biblatex}, with a different set of options and commands,
> too.
For the most part it should be drop in replacements. I don’t think any
user commands are *removed* from a derived style. But options to the
package could be added an user commands could be added.
> It may be possible to define a new variable, e.g.,
> ‘org-cite-biblatex-package‘, defaulting to ("bilatex" . nil). It would
> contain entries like (SUBSTYLE . OPTIONS) and would be used to build the
> proper \usepackage invocation.
Maybe that is the best way to go about. Then at least we could support
the main styles out there. I guess Chicago covers most of the social
sciences? I guess the humanities use APA? I don’t know how different
biblatex-apa is though.
There are also obscure styles. E.g. a student once used biblatex-aer
which is a derived style of biblatex-chicago that makes it look like a
famous journal.
> I also plan to allow custom commands in "oc-biblatex.el", so it could
> also handle commands introduced by the substyles.
>
> How we would select substyle from the document is not clear, tho.
If we want to support arbitrary styles somewhat I guess something like
#+cite_export: biblatex-$SUBSTYLE would be ok. But it would not
necessarily be full support.
> Another possibility it to write, e.g., "oc-biblatex-chicago.el" and
> define a new ‘biblatex-chicago’ export processor, re-using most
> functions from "oc-biblatex.el". It would probably only be necessary to
> re-define ‘org-cite-biblatex-export-citation’ and
> ‘org-cite-biblatex-prepare-preamble’.
I guess you (and Tom) is right that it would be better to make a derived style.
Tom, did you already make a derived style? From the later emails it
sounded like it, but I don’t see oc-biblatex-chicago.el in the main repo.
Otherwise, I can have try to have a go at it over the coming weeks.
Kind regards and terribly sorry again for missing the follow ups earlier,
Rasmus
--
In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice they are not
